The mission of Urban's Alumni Association is to provide an inclusive, engaged community that reflects Urban's core values, inspiring life-long connections between alumni, students and faculty.

In response to feedback from our alumni community, we have been implementing ways for our alums to support each other and current students in the area of career and professional development. Last month we launched a new Alumni Lunchtime Speaker Series and welcomed alum Luke Harrington ('93) to speak to students about his career path as a working artist and Art Director for Electronic Arts. In December, Alexis Thacker ('01) came to talk to our film students about her career as a producer of independent films. The students enjoyed these visits and we look forward to planning more opportunities for students and alums to connect.

We invite you to strengthen your connections with each other and help create a stronger Urban community. Please check out the new Networking section of our website and join our LinkedIn group (be sure to include Urban as your high school in your LinkedIn profile so you can use the alumni tool). If you are interested in serving as an advisor or speaker for alums in career transition or for current Urban students please fill out this form to let us know more about you and your interests.

And if you haven't already, like our Facebook page for regular updates and fun photos.

We look forward to connecting with you this year!

Tara Wilson ('95)
Alumni Association President

Note: This article was first published in This Term at Urban, a publication for Urban alumni parents.

Ben, tell us a little about what you have been doing since you graduated from Urban in 2007 and what brought you back?
My senior year at Urban I fell in love with English—it was reading American Romanticism (especially Moby Dick) and then Russian Literature (Brothers Karamazov) that did it for me. I attended Brown and gravitated toward literature and ended up studying Comparative Literature. By the end of my sophomore year I became pretty certain I wanted to teach literature as a career. I did a teaching program that summer, and by my senior year I started hunting for teaching jobs at independent high schools.

(at left: Ben in Jazz Band October 2006)

I got really lucky: the one school that even looked at my resume was in New Orleans, where (because I'm also a jazz musician) I was eager to live. After some persistence, I got the job. I taught there for two years, teaching high school English and also serving as a diversity coordinator. I was very happy there, but when Jonathan told me there was an opening at Urban, I knew I had to apply for the job. The attraction was obvious: Urban as an institution shares my values (partially because I was molded there); the teachers I'd be working with were the ones who "ignited my passion for learning," and I'd been modeling my lessons off my memories of their classes; and the students—as I was reminded in my visit—were not just bright and hard-working, but earnestly, personally invested in learning and growing.

Has Urban changed since you were a student here?
Are things the same?
The changes that I see are more a matter of perspective: being a student and then being a teacher. The actual changes are small in comparison to the changes when I was a student here. Between my sophomore and junior year the school expanded into the new building, adding a cafeteria and a dedicated music room.

I've noticed that the attitude around sports has changed a bit. Athletes seem to take more pride in their sports and teams, which is probably a good thing. I played soccer and remember how we felt a little inferior to the stronger teams and felt tempted not to take pride/ownership in response to losing. That said, I'm glad I got to play an important role on the team; if I had gone to Urban now, with its stronger program, I wouldn't have been able to help the team much.

Almost all the teachers I remember are still here, and I think the educational values are the same. The teaching, at least in English, where we're collaborating more on sharing lessons, giving consistent instruction, and tinkering with the curriculum as a team, may even be better—especially now that I'm teaching! (Obviously I'm kidding.)

What is your favorite place to eat on Haight Street?
Ploy II—it's a Thai restaurant upstairs in a Victorian house.